52 – Plucking of the Flower
Untold centuries ago, when the Snake Flower Sect had first been founded back in an age of history that has become hazy and ill-defined through the passage of time, the founder staked their claim upon Mount Gruai by slicing the tip off in one swift blow. This left them with a flat and broad expanse of stone upon which their quarters and facilities were constructed, along with fields of transmogrified and qi-infused earth within which their crops were grown.
However this was only the visible tip of the sect's land. Over time, as their needs and resources grew, they dug a vast and deep network of tunnels and chambers into the unyielding stone of the mountain.
These tunnels were then reinforced and constructed with bricks of qi-infused grandstone, tenfold tougher than any mortal steel, and layers of that same dense stone had been hewn into the mountain to form protective bands around their underground facilities. There was no telling, after all, if and when another sect could attack.
At their deepest point, more than five hundred meters from the snowy peak of the mountain, was their treasury. And as it was their most important facility, housing their great spoils of war, the Snake Flower had sheathed it in the densest layers of this grandstone, in theory making it sturdier than the very mountain itself.
And this, all of it, dissolved away like ice on a sunny path as the great halo of Sha's boiling wrath descended on the mountain.
Iudex Ryuga had seen war. He had seen more of it than he cared to count in High Moon and Low Moon alike. He'd weathered sieges by yokai, raids by great bandit hosts, and had even been alive long enough to experience the rampage of the Mad Hunt from the Ulle Steppe.
His greatest hope, when he agreed to become the Iudex of a sleepy village, was that he would be able to live his more senior years in peace.
As he stood there, watching the top of Mount Gruai melt away to reveal a vast and yawning wound of molten rock at the peak, he knew that such a simple hope was never to come true.
He stood silently, working his jaw, as he rested his hands on the posts of Master Amon's fence. His soldiers, and much of the village, had come this far out to get a look at things.
"It may not be too late to evacuate," he said, turning and raising his voice to the crowd. "Get on your boats and sail around, northward. The seas are calm enough for you to reach Tonnai. Those winged beasts appear to be dead, they will not pursue you."
"But... Master Ryuga," one young woman, Mikan the shopkeeper's daughter if he remembered correctly, raised a hand, "what about you?"
He smiled sadly at her. "Come what may, it is the Iudex's duty to stay in the town to see what happens in events such as this. If I survive, I will be able to send my official report to the imperial court. If I die... well, I will have done my duty."
"That is... a very fatalistic job, ser," said Azuwith, staring at him as if he were some kind of raving maniac. Perhaps he was.
But that was simply what was expected for those in imperial duty. If you would not die for your emperor, what good were you in his service?
"Won't come to that," said Haita.
Ryuga raised a brow at him. "Is that so?"
The young man nodded, full of the invulnerable and impenetrable confidence of the youth. Ryuga envied it. "Whatever is up there, Aniki can beat it."
"Whatever is up there just obliterated a huge chunk off a qi-infused mountain," Ryuga flatly replied. He was no cultivator but, in his youth as a trainee clerk in the Imperial Archive, he had taken to reading texts about qi and its applications.
He understood it a bit better than a layman, particularly in conjunction with his education in mathematics and the natural sciences. The amount of qi raging up there, he knew, could have easily obliterated Tiode, much of the surrounding wilderness, and boiled away a swathe of the nearby ocean just for good measure.
The very thought chilled him to his core.
He thought himself a strong man, but... what good was a strong man when veritable gods were waging war so high above them?
"I would like..." He took a breath, closed his eyes and squared his shoulders. "It would mean much to me if you would all try and get to safety. But I cannot force you to go." Any attempts at getting his solders to do anything would probably look foolish relative to what was happening on the distant mountain.
"But I suppose... ultimately we must wait and see if Master Amon is as capable as you believe him to be," said Ryuga.
Azuwith shook his head, his mouth set in a long and thin frown. "No man could survive such a thing. Not even an esteemed wizard."
Even so, Ryuga noted, the foreigner did not flee.
Was he really doing this? Abandoning a fight?
The thought gnawed at Yamato as he staggered down the snow-crusted steps. Even in his weakened state he had made great progress, already more than halfway to the base.
This just made him feel worse.
A coward who had failed all his friends and mentors, and was now running away because the man who'd humiliated him in the past had told him to?
And yet...
And yet he found he could go no direction but forward. Every time he looked back all he felt was the explosion of agony in his face, heard the screams of the dying, saw the faces of his oldest friends... and he would press on.
Cold tears from his good eye had frozen to his cheek, but this was rather low on his list of pain and grief.
"Damn them," he whispered, thinking of the foul yokai. "Damn you," he whispered, thinking of the foreigner who had shooed him away like an unworthy servant. "Damn me," he whispered, thinking about... well, himself.
All his life he'd wanted to be strong. To be a great warrior, unmatched under the heavens. Now he was facing the greatest defeat he thought a man could ever face.
He knew, of course that this part of Tsukio was seen as weak by some. But he'd believed that with enough time, enough training, he could ascend to any height. Wasn't that the very nature of cultivation?
But those oni, and that beast wreathed in flame, they had been insurmountable. Qi vaster than Mount Gruai itself. Was the gap between him and such beings truly so vast?
The ground rocked under his feet. The rumbling became a tremor, became a quake, and Yamato had to ram his blade into the rock at his feet to anchor himself. "What the-"
The sky above, once murky from the dense fog at the mountain's peak, was suddenly bathed in rays of bright orange light. An explosion, he realised with grim horror. A massive wall of fire, the qi so dense and potent that he briefly felt as if he was standing inside the heart of that raging inferno.
The quakes grew sharper, more powerful, dislodging massive chunks of rock. Yamato could only stare up at the sky, slackjawed, as a maw of fire tore the peak of the mountain apart, blowing through his home like a sickle through stalks of grain.
Yamato nearly fell over, had to grip his sword with all the strength he had left. "My home.." he hissed as fresh tears poured from his good eye. "My home!"
And just like that, the entire centuries long history of the Snake Flower Sect was flattened with all the finality of a full stop.